CYPRUS v. TURKEY JUDGMENT 43 that this policy was based on the implantation of massive numbers of settlers from Turkey with the intention and the consequence of eliminating Greek presence and culture in northern Cyprus. In the view of the applicant Government, the notions of “home” and “private life” were broad enough to subsume the concept of sustaining existing cultural relationships within a subsisting cultural environment. Having regard to the destructive changes being wrought to that environment by the respondent State, it could only be concluded that the rights of the displaced persons to respect for their private life and home were being violated in this sense also. 168. The Commission observed in the first place that the issue of whether the persons concerned by the impugned measures could have been expected to use local remedies to seek redress for their grievances did not have to be examined. In the Commission's opinion, the refusal of the “TRNC” authorities to allow the displaced persons to return to their homes reflected an acknowledged official policy and, accordingly, an administrative practice. In these circumstances there was no Convention requirement to exhaust domestic remedies. 169. As to the merits of the complaints concerning the plight of the displaced persons, the Commission found, with reference to its conclusions in its 1976 and 1983 reports and the findings of fact in the instant case (see paragraphs 30-33 above), that these persons, without exception, continued to be prevented from returning to or even visiting their previous homes in northern Cyprus. In the Commission's opinion, the facts disclosed a continuing violation of Article 8 in this respect, irrespective of the respondent Government's appeal to the public-safety considerations set out in the second paragraph of Article 8. As to the respondent Government's view that the claim of Greek-Cypriot displaced persons to return to the north and to settle in their homes had to be solved in the overall context of the inter-communal talks, the Commission considered that these negotiations, which were still very far from reaching any tangible result on the precise matter at hand, could not be invoked to justify the continuing maintenance of measures contrary to the Convention. 170. Having regard to its Article 8 finding as well as to its conclusions on the applicant Government's complaint under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (see paragraph 183 below), the Commission considered that it was not necessary to examine the applicant Government's further allegations concerning the manipulation of the demographic and cultural environment of the displaced persons' homes. 171. The Court notes that in the proceedings before the Commission the respondent Government did not dispute the applicant Government's assertion that it was not possible for displaced Greek Cypriots to return to their homes in the north. It was their contention that this situation would remain unchanged pending agreement on an overall political solution to the Cypriot question. In these circumstances the Court, like the Commission,